Derek Berry

black out

1.

Not for the first time, limbs loosen into slingshot. Meaning blurs becomes reckless hum disguised as courage. Too much champagne sparkle, glitterglitzed like jeweled bits of a bottle broken last night while dancing, spilled in the afternoon. Later, I trace the dirt abacus + a boy unstitches the drunk regret buried in my spine. I mimic the pastoral aubade, sob for morning’s sharp sudden light. I am nothing but animal sounds, desperate whetstone scrape + joltblue praisesong. Birdchild crumpled in the grass. Body an archive for the small broken + alive. Soft touch becomes electric when boozebleared, like a dark bedroom bled of lust. A mouse scurries across the floor, finds refuge in the trampling feet of dancing boys, who still each other’s quaking with touch, nostalgic for the next moment alive. In a small house, I cannot feel anything, like my spine’s become a snake’s coil, like my wretched mouth has finally emptied of words.

2.

Not for the
first time, limbs
loosen into slingshot.
Meaning blurs becomes
reckless hum disguised as
courage. Too much champagne sparkle, glitter-glitzed like jeweled bits of a bottle broken last night while dancing, spilled in the afternoon. Later, I
trace the dirt abacus
+ a boy unstitches the
drunk regret buried in my
spine. I mimic the pastoral aubade, sob for morning’s sharp sudden light. I am nothing but animal sounds,
desperate whetstone scrape +
joltblue praisesong. Bird-child
crumpled in the grass.
Body an archive for the
small broken + alive. Soft touch becomes electric when booze-bleared, like a dark bedroom bled of lust. A mouse scurries across the floor, finds
refuge in the trampling feet of dancing boys, who still each other’s quaking with touch, nostalgic for the next
moment alive. In a small house, I cannot feel anything, like my spine’s become a snake’s coil, like my wretched
mouth has finally
emptied of words.

3.

Not for the first time, limbs loosen into
slingshot. Meaning blurs becomes reckless hum disguised as courage. Too much
champagne sparkle, glitter-glitzed like jeweled bits of a bottle broken last
night while dancing, spilled in the
afternoon. Later, I trace the dirt abacus + a boy unstitches the drunk regret buried in my spine. I mimic the pastoral aubade,
sob for morning’s sharp
sudden light. I am nothing but animal sounds, desperate whetstone scrape + joltblue
praisesong. Bird-child crumpled in the grass. Body an archive for the small
broken + alive.
Soft touch becomes electric
when booze-bleared, like a dark bedroom bled of lust. A mouse scurries across the floor, finds refuge in the trampling
feet of dancing boys, who still each other’s quaking with touch, nostalgic for the next
moment alive. In a
small house, I cannot feel anything, like my spine’s become a snake’s coil, like my wretched
mouth has finally emptied of
words.

aubade in omelas

a bee lands on the windowsill,lazy stumbles into the bedroom where we sleep. i allow the bee to land on my noseas if i have never heard of stingers.

it is possible, yes, the minerals in the cell phonewere harvested from a starved earthby hands scarred by conflict.& yet when i wake to tweeta photo of a dog dressed as a lobster,i do not think about this.every day you mourntame as a forgotten anarchythe sin gargled tequila-pungent.

it is possible, yes,every joy is honey & blood.

i pick up the phone, thumbs-upa meme. laugh react without laughing.& a mother collapses at the border of town, her childplucked from her hands. the child, in a basement,loses his first tooth.

the dirt will crack & swallow usbut only through small violences,like slapping a mosquito mid-bloodsnackleaving behind the messy remnant smear on your bare thigh.what an inconvenience to consider its minor life,to scrape its guts from skin, to return to mundanity & forget.

i trace the warmth of you,happy to live here, herewhere honey is abundant.this is a hard grace,how we forget so easily the origin of salt in the human body,how the sun rises quick & brings with it a red, red sky,the horizon splitting open gorgeous like a knifed neck.

grief habit

there’s a brief barter with each bottle, a simple equation tilting toward vice.choose joy, the unwarm neckbegging for a mouth. choosetonight, tomorrow a slot machine promisingonly uncertainty. it is good to feel good,indulge in a moment’s mercurial luminescence.

even the cancer ward does not ruinyour taste for cigarettes.even your father’s surgery does not discourageyour sugar feast.as your body pulses in revolt, you pushanother pill past cobblestone teeth.

at your aunt’s funeral, her motherburies the body in the backyard.her brother-in-law has craftedthe casket himself.red faces hover, a grief mobcarrying torches wicked with whiskey.

graveside, you teetertipsy.flask holstered to hip.wear a habit. prayto what cannot save you.learn first booze-loosed lucidity.here, see clearly how joyfrays, how an overflowing cup can drown.

behind the barn, choose yourself again.let the gutwarm lick your brainstem. call this self care, how you barterfor another moment underwater, thenjoin the mourners. take turns tossing handfuls of dirt.

Derek Berry is the author of the novel “Heathens & Liars of Lickskillet County” & the forthcoming poetry chapbook “Glitter Husk.” They are the recipient of the Emrys Poetry Prize & Broad River Prize for Prose, among other honors. Their recent work has appeared in Yemassee, Beloit Poetry Journal, Raleigh Review, Gigantic Sequins, Taco Bell Quarterly, & elsewhere. They live in Aiken, South Carolina, where they teach creative writing to children & work in Cold War historic archives. Their work can be found at derekberrywriter.com